Thursday, September 10, 2015

Some serious thinkers do not believe in reality. They do not
accept the existence of objective facts. They believe that it’s all in the way
we see it, thus, the way we interpret it. They believe that we can change
reality by interpreting it differently.

They are saying that everything is propaganda. No one set of
facts is any better than any other so we should choose our facts selectively,
the better to promote a narrative that
will advance our cause.

It’s all a lie anyway, so why not lie for a good cause?

That seems to be the reigning principle behind the
intelligence assessments presented by Centcom, the military branch in charge of
fighting ISIS. Some fifty intelligence analysts have stepped forth to say that
their reports are being modified by higher ups to fit with the the
Obama administration narrative. Winning is ignoring all the evidence that says you are losing.

More
than 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military's Central
Command have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and
al Qaeda’s branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior
officials, The Daily Beast has learned.

The
complaints spurred the Pentagon’s inspector general to open an investigation
into the alleged manipulation of intelligence. The fact that so many people
complained suggests there are deep-rooted, systemic problems in how the U.S.
military command charged with the war against the
self-proclaimed Islamic State assesses intelligence.

“The
cancer was within the senior level of the intelligence command,” one defense
official said.

And also:

Two
senior analysts at CENTCOM signed a written complaint sent to the Defense
Department inspector general in July alleging that the reports, some of which were
briefed to President Obama, portrayed the terror groups as weaker than the
analysts believe they are. The reports were changed by CENTCOM higher-ups to
adhere to the administration’s public line that the U.S. is winning the battle
against ISIS and al Nusra, al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the analysts claim.

If the leaders of Centcom are skewing the analysis to make
the administration happy, it means that the Obama administration foreign policy
team, led by John Kerry and Susan Rice, wants to hear only what it wants to
hear. Because the facts might hurt their feelings.

Some of
those CENTCOM analysts described the sizeable cadre of protesting analysts as a
“revolt” by intelligence professionals who are paid to give their honest
assessment, based on facts, and not to be influenced by national-level policy.
The analysts have accused senior-level leaders, including the director of
intelligence and his deputy in CENTCOM, of changing their analyses to be more
in line with the Obama administration’s public contention that the fight
against ISIS and al Qaeda is making progress. The analysts take a more pessimistic view about how military efforts to destroy
the groups are going….

The
complaints allege that in some cases key elements of intelligence reports were
removed, resulting in a document that didn’t accurately capture the analysts’
conclusions, sources familiar with the protest said. But the complaint also
goes beyond alleged altering of reports and accuses some senior leaders at
CENTCOM of creating an unprofessional work environment. One person who knows
the contents of the written complaint sent to the inspector general said it
used the word “Stalinist” to describe the tone set by officials overseeing
CENTCOM’s analysis.

The question now is: are they all lying or do they just not
know any better? And, if they do not know any better, is it because they are
ignoring the evidence or because no one dares tell them the truth?

Obviously, the Obama administration cannot possibly make
good military policy when it does not know (and would rather not know) the
military situation.

Now, it is facing the humanitarian nightmare that its
policies have unleashed. Since this issue allows it to show its empathy it is
happy to deal with it… by allowing more refugees to enter the country.

3 comments:

Well, one could echo Korzbyski's observation that "the map is not the territory" but I don't think that this is talking about different "maps" describing the same territory so much as misrepresenting the same map...

A good question. And a good thing the military has a formal system of complaints to sort all that out.

I don't think any readers of that "exclusive" article will learn anything useful except the generic truth that people have varied opinions, and no ones likes to feel their opinions have been unduly dismissed or diminished.

And their motives would appear sincere, afraid of repeating past humiliations where raw facts have been cherry-picked by political agendas.----------For some, who have served at CENTCOM for more than a decade, scars remained from the run-up to the 2003 war in Iraq, when poorly written intelligence reports suggesting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, when it did not, formed the basis of the George W. Bush administration’s case for war.

“They were frustrated because they didn’t do the right thing then” and speak up about their doubts on Iraq’s weapons program, the defense official told The Daily Beast.----------